I belive it's He/She/It loves dogs? Like "He Loves Dogs", in reference to Octavio. I'm only in Spanish 1 so I may be way off, but I think that's about right. Could a fluent Spanish-speaker please correct me if I'm wrong? Thank you!
share"Love's a Bitch" was used by some marketing groups, but it all depends on the context that it is put into.
shareI´m not toally fluent in Spanish yet, but I´m living and have studied Spanish in Mexico for 3 years now. Í`d translate it as "Love Dogs," which may not make sense in English. Here in Mexico it´ve very common to change the literal meaning of an English movie title to something else. For instance, Home Alone is titled here as Mi Pobre Angelito (My Poor Little Angel). Maybe the reverse it true when going from Spanish to English. Amores Perros does not translate to Love´s A Bitch.
shareIt translates to "Love's a Bitch".
shareIt's a pun.
"Amor - es - perros": Love is a bitch; literally: (Love is dogs or bitch)
"Amores - perros": Dog love. (Dog(s) or bitch(es) love)
"Perro-perra" means dog and also means bitch.
Therefore, it is the duty of the Angel Azrael to bring you punishment.
"Love is a bitch." I said the title to my fluent parents and they knew immediately what the title meant.
It doesn't translate well in English, but in Spanish it's dead on and fits the theme of the film.
the hitman also mentions that part of his payment was tickets to the Rolling Stones concert, whose billions of songs include one with chrorus ...love, it's a bitch.
shareIt is not "Love's a bitch". This implies that love is bad every time.
It isn't a pun also. At least, that's not the main intention.
The phrase "Amores perros" (Dog loves) is applied to romances that are harsh, romances that affect your well-being (contrary to what love is supposed to do), either because one hurts the other or both hurt each other. Actually, more than just romances because love is more general than romance. So, "perro" becomes an adjective, not a noun.
Consider the stories of the characters: Octavio loves Susana and will do whatever for her. She accepts him because it's convenient for her but ultimately, she loves Ramiro and Octavio ends up hurt. Daniel y Valeria hurt each other when their love stops being comfortable and they have to face the real issues of living together. El Chivo loves Maru but hurts her by his behavior, trying to "fix" the world instead of staying with her and her mother. All these are "amores perros" or "dog loves".
So, all these loves make the ones involved suffer. That's what you should understand when the phrase is used, a love is a "dog love" when it makes the ones involved suffer.
It's true that there's a play on the words because we see a lot of dogs and their relationships with their owners but the spanish phrase has the meaning I just explained. And as far as I know, there's no translation into english.
Sources: I'm Mexican.
I agree with Changarromaster. "Amores perros" is plural for "Amor perro" which is an idiomatic expression that esentially means "Love which makes you suffer". I think that's the meaning they tried to achieve with the english title "Love's a bitch". Although not an exact match, seems to be the closest they could put it in few words.
Bump!
Sources: I'm Salvi
Bump!
Sources: I'm Salvi
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Well said, Changarromaster.
You will rarely get good results when you translate Spanish (or any other language I would assume) directly into English.
"Amores" is Love in the plural form (Loves). It was never meant to be "Amor es" (Love is).
"Amor Es Perros" is grammatically incorrect. Sentence structure in Spanish is not the same as in English. As Changarromaster said: "Perros", in this case, is an adjective. "Love Is Dog" doesn't make sense.
"Amores Perros" is more like "Brutal Loves". "Love's a Bitch" is a desperate attempt to match the clever word play of the Spanish title. It's also in bad taste and vulgar. Terrible decision in my opinion.
"Since when are wolves afraid of wolves?" -Tigrero (Loco) from Il Grande Silenzio
You got it totally right. I just want to add that "perro" is used as an adjective not only in Mexico, but in other countries as well. For example, when one has really bad luck, one can say "perra suerte" (doggy luck), or "perra vida" (doggy life.)
I guess dogs in the US have much nicer lives than in Latin America, and for this reason the association of "perro" and "harshness" gets lost in translation :-)
I'm peruvian and Love's a bitch isn't really a good translation, not at all in my opinion. When the title appears on the screen the two words are in a different color. "Amores" (love in the plural) is in red and "Perros" (dogs) is in white. This film tells the story of three people very much affected by love in one way or another and all the stories happen to involve dogs. It seems to me that the director just put the two words together that symbolyze the two biggest topics of the movie, which put together is Amores Perros. If anything, in english it'd simply be "Love/Dogs", although I must say it sounds waaaay better in spanish.
shareI accept all the explanations of the title, I speak decent Spanish, so I am aware then the title is a multilevel pun. I am just wandering how far it goes. Can some native confirm if perro apart from dog and unworthy person, can also refer to unfaithful husband, a hitman, and a prostitute (in that case maybe perra) as the FAQ on IMDB states?
I havent found these 3 more meanings in any dictionary yet.
The title isn't a pun. In the sentence "Amores perros" the word "perros" is an adjective, take Changarromaster explanation as the definite one. It's not only spanish, it's a mexicanism, that's the reason many spanish speakers don't get it (as the poster from Peru).
I have had problems explaining it to friends and I thought I could clarify it here but Changarromaster's explanation is perfect and there's nothing to add. I'm mexican too by the way.
In the other hand, no, "perro" doesn't mean unfaithful husband, hitman or prostitute, you can use the word "perro" to insult your unfaithful partner or any other person but the meaning is still closer to "unworthy person" as you pointed.
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It's a play on words "Amores Perros" (plural of Amor Perro where Amor= love, and perro= an adjective, in Mexican slang "perro" besides meaning dog also means something difficult or hard, and sometimes something "hardcore" or "harsh"). So Amores Perros can mean: Fúcked-up loves, difficult loves, you get the idea, that's why it was translated (initially) as Love's a Bitch. Also it sounds like "Amor es perros" (love is dogs, a reference to how dogs are linked to people's lives in the story). So it works on different levels. Even "Doggie loves", too.
Yes, perra can mean prostitute. I don't know about specific uses about unfaithful husbands or hitmen, but perro (according to the offical Spanish dictionary) also means a "despicable person", or "harm or damage made to someone when that person is cheated or a deal is broken" (reminds me of Octavio' final scene when the girl doesn't show up), or "a person who is tenacious, constant or firm on something", etc.
The swedish name for the movie is: Älskade hundar, which literally means "beloved dogs".
Wtf?
Also... I can kill you with my brain
I'll just add and not correct anybody. Living in Mexico as I do now for more than 30 years but being otherwise Chilean, I can add a little to the understanding of the word "perro" when used as an adjective. In Mexico it will mean tough, hard, harsh. It means something that resembles being attacked by an angry dog! That is the feeling! So, if something is "perro", you definitely have a hard time! That's why somebody translated "Amores perros" as "Brutal Love". Somebody else said that it means a kind of love that makes you suffer. In any measure, a "perro" type of love means hardship.
And for the Swedish translation: waaaay off!
It's true.I agree with you but I wouldn't say Love's a bitch it's too different in meaning than brutal love even if perro is used as an adjective in the original spanish.
But when English speakers say "love's a bitch", they're usually complaining about love with hardships, or "brutal love". So I think the feel of the expressions, though not identical (and are different syntactically), are similar enough that it works--and is kind of a clever translation because of that. I presume Spanish speakers could say (correct me if I'm wrong) "tengo/tenemos un amor perro" to complain that (their) "love is a bitch" (love is hard, love sucks sometimes, etc.--or love is brutal).
I'm from the US, but took four years of Spanish, and learned a lot more from living a year in Guatemala. Never heard that expression, although someone above said it was distinctly Mexican so that's probably why. Interesting expression though.
Understanding is a three-edged sword.
Hey,
now it all makes sense. At first I heard the translation is "love's a bitch". And it didn't really narrow it down. The connection between each story doesn't feel strong.
But after hearing "dog love" it immediately struck my mind. Octavio and Cofi! The Girl and Richiii! The Hobo and his dogs! Thank you for this thread!